Automatic test equipment (ATE) plays a role in the manufacture of electronics, such as semiconductor devices and circuit board assemblies. Manufacturers generally use automatic test equipment, or “test instruments”, to verify the operation of devices during the manufacturing process. Such devices are referred to as a “device under test” (DUT) or a “unit under test” (UUT).
ATEs typically include a processing device, such as a microprocessor, and hardware elements, such as circuitry or logic configured to perform various tasks. The hardware elements may issue interrupts to the processing device. Generally speaking, an interrupt is an asynchronous signal indicating that a particular hardware device is in need of attention. In some examples, a hardware interrupt causes the processing device to save its state of execution and to begin execution of an interrupt handler. The interrupt hander may include code that is executed on the processor to service the interrupt.
In ATEs and other computing systems that include numerous hardware elements, individual processing of interrupts can sometimes be problematic. For example, in a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) Express-based system (PCIe), message signal interrupts (MSI) are sent from individual hardware elements to a processing device (referred to as a “root complex” in PCI Express parlance). Each time the processing device receives an MSI, it may address the interrupt, which can interfere with processing and thereby affect processing efficiency.